Sheridan's camp ox big creek. 139 



thing in it which, he said, looked like the end of a tail. 

 It is a debatable question, to my mind, whether 

 Satan, among his many ways of entering into man, 

 does not occasionally do so in the folds of Bologna 

 sausage. Certain it is that, after such repast, one 

 often feels like Old Nick, and woe be to the man at 

 any time who is at all dyspeptic. All the forces of 

 one's gastric juices may then prove insufficient to 

 wage successful battle with the evil genius which 

 rends him. 



Our outfit, as regards transportation, consisted of 

 the animals heretofore mentioned, and two teams 

 which we hired at Hays, for the baggage and com- 

 missary supplies. ^ 



The evening before our departure we rode over to 

 the fort and called upon General Sheridan. " Little 

 Phil" had pitched his camp on the bank of Big 

 Creek, a short distance below the fort, preferring a 

 soldier's life in the tent to the more comfortable 

 officer's quarters. This we thought eminently char- 

 acteristic of the man. He is an accumulation of 

 tremendous energy in small compass, a sort of cm- 

 bodied nitro-glycerine, but dangerous only to his 

 enemies. Famous principally as a cavalry leader, 

 because Providence flung him into the saddle and 

 started him off at a gallop, had his destiny been in- 

 fantr}^, he would have led it to victory on the run. 

 And now, officer after officer having got sadly tangled 

 in the Indian web, which was w^eaving its strong- 

 threads over so fair a portion of our land, Sheridan 

 was sent forward to cut his way through it. 



The camp was a pretty picture with its line of 



